Gone Fishin'
by Fanatic Drone N
Summary: Oneshot. For those of you who thought the Siege of the North went a little too smoothly, here's how it SHOULD have happened.


"So, remind me again," The Fire Nation soldier said as Zhao led them into the sacred spring, "We're here to kill the moon?"

"Yes." Zhao said, trying to convey as much irritation as possible. Hu always asked stupid questions. "The moon is a fish, and we're going to kill it."

"…Why?"

"So waterbenders won't be able to waterbend."

"But, when we take over the north pole, won't it be useful to have waterbenders? Make them work in the ships and stuff? And won't everybody back home be ticked that you screwed up the tides and now it's too dark to see at night?"

"Shut up, Hu. This is necessary."

"So… We couldn't take the north pole if there was a moon?"

"Exactly."

"But I thought the Fire Nation was invincible. Are you telling me we could lose to a fish?"

"Ye-no. No. Not at all Hu."

"But… Then why do we need to kill the fish?"

"Because you're adopted."

Hu sighed, and hung his head.

"Now, gimme my moon-catchin' sack!" Zhao said, looming over the pond heroically. A soldier handed him a burlap bag with 'moon catching sack' written on it in Chinese, and Zhao leaned over to catch the fish.

"Wait, you're just gonna go for it with a bag?" Hu said.

"Shut up! You're scaring the fish!" Zhao yelled, and then bent back over to the pond. He leaned in close, timed his strike and-

_SPLASH!_

"I think you missed, Admiral." Hu said, as Zhao growled in fury.

"Okay, lemme try that again-"_SPLASH!_"-One more time-"_SPLASH!_"-Third time's the charm-"_SPLASH!_"-Godsdammit!"

"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go after a four-inch koi with a bag. Those things swim fast."

"Shut up, Hu! My plan is perfect!"

"Did you even _think_ about how you were gonna _get_ the fish?"

"That kind of talk is exactly why you're real parents abandoned you."

Hu sighed again, and slouched down on the ground, idly pulling out tufts of grass and playing with them while Zhao kept trying with the bag.

On the twelfth try, Zhao stopped suddenly, and looked around suspiciously. "Did it just get warmer in here?"

"It's a magical spring, Admiral. That's why it's warm around here. It's magic and stuff."

"No, I meant the water just got warm- DAMN IT, LI!"

Li, a soldier standing by the stream a few feet up, straightened up and zipped his pants. "Sorry, Admiral. I ate a lot of snow on the way here."

"Gods, look at the moon!" Hu said, pointing at the orb in the sky which had just turned a sickly shade of yellow.

"Think anyone'll notice that?" Li said, edging away from the stream.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, even further to the north, Zuko looked up from his abduction of a twelve-year-old boy he'd been stalking for a year, and stared at the moon. "Huh," he said, "It really <em>does <em>look like cheese. Oh well, come on Avatar… Jeez, you could lose some weight…"

Also meanwhile, Katara shuddered and groaned. Sokka turned from looking for Aang and asked, "What is it?"

"It's like… The moon… There's this _awful_ taste in my mouth…"

* * *

><p>"Okay, I'm not sticking my hands back in there." Zhao said, stepping away from the pond and wiping his hands off on Hu's clothes. "So how do we get the fish out?"<p>

"Maybe you could boil the water with firebending?" Hu suggested.

"Okay, so boiling it with firebending _definitely _won't work," Zhao said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, then remembering where his hands had just been and folding them behind his back.

"You know, given everything that's going on with the moon, I'm surprised the Avatar hasn't shown up to protect it. I wonder what he's doing…"

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, Aang was in the spirit world, trying not to pull a face as the awful taste filled his mouth. Ironically, this helped him ignore Koh, who kept insulting him to get a reaction.<p>

"Hey! Hey! Aang! Hey! Yo momma's so fat, she got more Chins than Ba Sing Se!"

"I never knew my mother." Aang said, taking the occasion to spit off to the side. "And that joke was terrible."

"What! ? It's frickin' hilarious! I mean, I even made a reference to how common a surname Chin is there. It's hilarious! I spent years working on these!"

"Which explains why you don't have a girlfriend." Aang said blankly, "That and your smelly-ass cave."

"That's not what your _mom_ said to me last night!"

"Again, I never knew her, and she's been dead for a hundred years."

"Well, we _are_ in the spirit world."

"If she was a spirit, she wouldn't have a body, and you couldn't do her. Boo-yeah." Aang said monotonously.

"Yeah, well… How about this one? You momma's so fat, Earthbenders keep thinking' she's a mountain and try to pull rocks out of her!"

"Meh. I've heard better."

* * *

><p>"Okay," Zhao said, holding his fishing rod and adjusting his Imperial Fire Navy Fishin' Hat, "And now we wait."<p>

Hu frowned. "Hey, Zhao, aren't there a bunch of waterbenders or something that will figure out what we're doing and try to stop us? Can you speed it up?"

Zhao rolled his eyes. "Hu, fishing takes time. Didn't your father teach you about patience when he took you moon-spirit hunting? Oh wait, never mind, you're _adopted_."

The moon spirit looked over at Zhao's hook, saw the worm dangling there, and, being a highly intelligent otherworldy being, noticed the giant piece of metal stuck in it. It swam over, took a bite off one end, and then swam around the hook and bit off the other half.

"Stupid fish ate my bait!" Zhao yelled, hooking another worm on as the moon swelled in size a little.

Li turned to Hu and said, "Hey, if the fish are the moon and the ocean, I wonder what the worms here are."

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, thousands of miles to the south, in the Earth kingdom, a group of nomads stared up at the awesome heights of Mount Tianshan. The leader turned back towards his clan. "Alright, we'll have to travel south for a few miles until we find the pass. Make sure you have plenty of water, because Tiashan is a long, difficult-"<p>

Suddenly, with a WHAP, half the mountain disappeared. A second later, the rest of it went.

"Oh." The leader said. "Okay then."

* * *

><p>Iroh wandered into the moon spring, absentmindedly eating a sandwich. "Oh, if it isn't the disgraced General Iroh." Zhao said contemptuously as he recast his line, "What took you so long?"<p>

Iroh pointed at the sandwich, shrugged, and resumed chewing. After a few minutes of awkward silence, broken only by Zhao's curses and Iroh's munching, the former general swallowed and pointed at the pond. "What'chya doing?"

"Trying to catch the moon."

"… That looks like a fish."

"Yes. I know. But it's actually the moon."

"Oh…" Iroh said, pulling off another piece of his sandwich and throwing it in the pond, "Good luck with that. Hey, how come I'm the 'disgraced' General Iroh?"

"You failed at Ba Sing Se. Miserably."

"Got closer than you ever did. I was like, eighty-five percent of the way there. That's a solid B. You never even tried."

"I'm an Admiral!"

"And who ever heard of a famous _naval _battle in the war? All the good stuff happens on land."

"Well… At least I still have honor."

"Yes. That's why you're fishing for magical Koi at the north pole instead of enjoying yourself back in the capital. Fishing is _way_ more dignified."

"Wouldn't you like fishing, Iroh? It's all slow, and inefficient, and proverbial and stuff."

"You want a proverb? If you give a man a fish," Iroh said as flute music began playing in the background, "You feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. But then he shows up in about a week and asks if he can have beef. You ever tried living entirely off of fish? You get scurvy."

Zhao stared at him with a mixture of awe and indigestion, when suddenly he felt a tug on his line. "Ooh! Ooh! I got it! Hey, Hu, come over here and take a look! I caught it!" He yelled as he began to reel back the line.

Hu leaned over Zhao's shoulder. "Hey, was the moon the white one or the black one?"

"The white one. Why?" Zhao said, looking at Hu and ignoring the pole.

"I think you just caught the ocean."

He turned back to see, flopping weakly on the end of the line, the physical embodiment of the seas.

"Dumbass." Iroh said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, out at sea, the ocean began to thrash. Giant waves appeared out of nowhere, docks and ships were splintered on the coast, and a certain Lion Turtle was woken from his slumber.<p>

"Jeez…" He moaned, rubbing his eyes, "Someone's messing with the moon spirits again. The Avatar needs to take care of that… What is he doing, anyways?"

* * *

><p>"No wonder you're an air bender!" Koh said, waving his little legs in the air, "You gotta be to blow away that nasty smell."<p>

"A 'you stink' joke? That's the best you can do? Gods, you're terrible. No wonder I tried to kill you."

"And, and… um… yo mamma put the 'stink' in 'extinct', which is what all the Air Nomads are!" Koh said, switching faces every two seconds.

"That's just bad. I'm gonna leave now. Bye, Koh." Aang said, turning to leave.

"Wait, Avatar! Stay! Lemme steal your face! I'll… I'll… I'll trade you for it! Here, you can have your old girlfriend's face you wanted so bad!" Koh said, popping off the face and holding it tantalizingly in the air while switching to a salesman's face.

Aang turned back. "Wait, your faces come off?"

Koh immediately adopted a blank expression. "No. Of course they don't."

Aang rolled up his sleeves and started back towards the demon. "Wait, Avatar, I'm not letting you take my faces," Koh said, backing up into the dank cave, "I am a spiritual being with far greater will power than you, and I will not show any emo-"

Aang kicked him in the gut. Koh's face immediately scrunched up in pain.

"-OW! Gods, Avatar, that really hurt! Who _does_ that? Wait, no-"

Aang pulled off Koh's face with a POP, and grabbed the other one from the floor. Still wincing, Koh turned and scuttled away from him as fast as he could, screaming, "Help! Help! This maniac is trying to take my faces! Somebody-OW!"

Aang twisted one of his little legs behind his back, grinning maliciously, saying, "Say Uncle!"

"Uncle! Uncle! Unc-POP-Quit taking my faces! Ow, ow, ow, uncle! UNCLE!"-POP.

Aang pulled off Koh's aces one by one, not even caring about keeping his expression blank, safely out of range of Koh's face-stealing thingies. Eventually, he pulled of the last face to reveal-

"M. Night Shyalaman? Oh, I get it, it's a twist ending."

"Please don't take this one!" Koh/Shyalaman said, holding his claws in front of his eyes, "This is my favorite face! I use it to make movies."

"Okay, this is just getting weird… I'm gonna go now." Aang said, releasing the monster/director and walking to the exit.

"Very well, Avatar…" Koh said, retreating into the darkness, 'But we shall soon meet again."

"No, I don't think we will. I think we'll basically forget about you, and you'll never show up in another episode. Maybe in a flashback. Maybe."

"Very well, Avatar…" Koh said, once Aang was safely out of earshot. "But I _will_ have my revenge…" He said, holding up a pen in one claw and the script to _The Last Airbender_ with the other…

* * *

><p>Back in the Moon spring, Zhao was desperately trying to get the hook out of the sea-fish's mouth. "How do I do this! ? Somebody help me, it's stuck!"<p>

Li made a face. "Eww, it's all slimy. I don't want to touch it."

Hu stepped forward to help Zhao, but Iroh grabbed him by the collar, shaking his head. "He needs to learn how to do this by himself if he's ever going to fish."

"How many times is he going to fish for spirits?"

"Well, I don't know about Zhao, but I've been in situations like this at least five times. Twice with the moon, once with the sea, and the other two with the sun."

"There's a sun fish?"

"No, it's a frog."

"Oh no," Zhao said as the fish stopped flopping, "I think it's dead!"

The ground beneath their feet rumbled. Hu started screaming, "SEE? SEE ZHAO, THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T MESS WITH SPIRITS!"

With a tremendous flushing noise, all the world's oceans disappeared into the seabed, pulling ships, swimmers, and Lion Turtles with them. Thousands of surprised fish found themselves flopping on the seabed, and the air around the world thinned as it rushed into the newly-created vacuum.

Li gasped for air as they suddenly found themselves at an altitude equivalent to twenty thousand feet, and Zhao started running in circles panickedly. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, shit, what am I gonna do, what are we gonna do, I killed the frickin' ocean-"

"Nice going, jackass." Aang said as he descended into the spring, carrying a stack of faces under one arm.

"Avatar! Look, you have to do something: The ocean just died, and we're all screwed unless you fix it!"

"Unless _I_ fix it?' Aang said, dropping the faces on the ground and pointing at Zhao, "You killed the fish, you deal with it!"

"I don't know how to! _You're _the bridge to the spirit world!"

"I'm also twelve. I didn't go to 'Ocean Spirit Revival' class yet: Avatars don't do that until they're, like, twenty. Besides, that fish looks pretty dead, and I don't do necromancy."

"Well," Iroh said, stroking his impressive beard, "It would appear that somebody will have to give their life force to the fish. Since the _Moon_ spirit gives white hair, the Ocean will probably need black hair."

"Right," Zhao said, "That makes sense. Okay, Hu, I'm gonna need you to-"

Hu pulled off his helmet to reveal a mane of golden locks. Zhao stared in disbelief, before stuttering, "How does a Fire Nation soldier have blonde hair! ?"

"I was adopted, remember?" Hu said, shaking his gorgeous hair through the air like he was in a shampoo commerical.

"Well, okay," Zhao said, starting to panic, "Li, how about-Where did Li go?"

* * *

><p>"And so I defected from the Fire Nation, because I could no longer tolerate the immorality of the war." Li finished explaining to the confused Water Tribe family in whose house he was hiding.<p>

"…So, can you firebend or something?" The father asked, "Cause it would be so much easier to cook then."

Li nodded enthusiastically. His host shrugged. "Alright, you can stay."

* * *

><p>"LI YOU LITTLE WORM, GET BACK HERE!" Zhao yelled in a mixture of panic and rage.<p>

"Well," Iroh said, "Looks like it's up to you, Zhao."

"Wha- But my hair is brown!"

"Well, you're as close to black as we can get. My hair is a sagely grey."

"But, but- The Avatar! This should be his problem anyways, and Air Nomads had black hair! Plus, he's not old at all!"

"Actually, I'm a hundred and twelve," Aang said, before pointing at his head, "And I'm bald."

"That's not how it works!" Zhao spluttered angrily.

"Who died to make _you _king of hair-based-necromancy?"

"Zhao, you need to suck it up and be a man." Iroh scolded, "Everyone's gotta give their life force to a fish sooner or later."

"No they don't!"

"Zhao, how are you going to get back to the Fire Nation without an ocean?"

"I'll just stay here. There's gotta be enough provisions around here to keep me alive."

Iroh sighed. "Zhao, don't you remember what I told you about eating nothing but fish? Besides, the sun frog lives on a mountain: If it feels like we can't breathe here, it's probably asphyxiating right now."

"So?"

"So the sun's gonna go out!"

"I'm a firebender: I have all the light and heat I need."

"Zhao," Aang said, "Do you realize how many millions of tons of fish are high and dry right now?"

"Well… Yes, but so what?"

"Do you wanna be here to smell all that rotting fish? The entire atmosphere's gonna _reek_."

Zhao shuddered. He sighed, and looked forlornly at the fish. "Alright. If I have to."

Zhao picked up the fish. "Um… Ocean Spirit… you can have my life force I guess. Just don't make it hur-OH GODS, THE _PAIN_!"

Aang, Iroh, and Hu watched nonchalantly as Zhao's life force drained into the fish, causing him to age to an old man and crumble into dust in a matter of seconds. Iroh walked up to the now-flopping fish and kicked it back into the pond.

"Well," He said, as the ocean came rushing back, "All's well that ends well."

And so the three friends walked down to the city, as the surging waves flung the Lion Turtle and screaming swimmers from Ember Island over the Water Tribe's defensive wall. As the Water Tribe held their newly-acquired prisoners hostage and the Fire Nation army surrendered, they watched the sun rise come up over the horizon, looking a little more out of breath than usual.

"So," Aang said, as the Lion Turtle crushed a house next to them, "Anyone want an extra face?"


End file.
